The School.

Montclair Elementary is a neighborhood school located in northwest Florida that hosts grade PreK to 5. By Florida standards Montclair is a small elementary with approximately 300 students. The majority of students walk to and from school each day. The school is located on a busy street that has a consistent flow of traffic and faces an area called Diego Circle that is known for the ease of drug of choice purchases at any time. Parents are always concerned about the safety of their children.

The interior of the school is much like what we think of as a neighborhood school. The tile floors are shined and polished and the students walk on a specific side of the hall and follow the blue tile line. However, this is where the similarities with a neighborhood school end. Montclair has no playground equipment, no updated technology, and no well-maintained grounds. It seems to be a school that was forgotten.

Click here for Montclair Elementary Fact Sheet.

The Case Study.

• Define Performance: Will and Skill; High, Solid, Low Performers
• Think about What You would do as the School Leader
• Accelerators or Effective Teaching?
  Accelerators don’t improve schools… Leaders do!
• Year 1 Plan: Professional Learning Communities in Grade Level Teams
• Focus on Human Element: Teachers (Angry, Hopeless, Little Trust); Students (Eager to Learn and Hungry for Care and Attention)
  How do We Lead in a Culture of Anger, Hopelessness, and Mistrust?
  What’s the Teacher’s What in this Culture?
• Build Relationships
  Care and Concern
  Leader Rounding
  Recognition/Feedback (e.g., WOW Card)
  Focus on One Thing 100% Led by Others
• Professional Learning Community
  Focused Vocabulary Lessons – 30 Day Plan
  Communicate Learning Targets – Two Way
  Student Engagement Observation Tool
  Feedback, Feedback, Feedback
• Year 2 Plan: Professional Learning Communities Performance Transparency and Recognition
• Culture of Ownership and Reflection

Click here to View ASCD Presentation.

Student Achievement.

End of Year Results – Montclair moved from an F School Grade to an A Grade!

Met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)

Writing scores improved from 52 percent to 89 percent proficiency, the second-highest school score out of 44 schools in the district.

Reading and Math scores increased – On grade level; Year’s worth of progress; and Struggling students make year’s worth of progress

All subgroups met state criteria

Click here to View Montclair Grade Data 2008 – 2011.

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Dr. Rebecca McBride is the principal of Montclair Elementary School in Escambia County, Florida. She and her colleagues have seen increases in student achievement (2010-11), teacher and staff engagement, and parent satisfaction since implementing learning communities and other effective teaching and leader strategies at their school. Check out the great things happening at Montclair on their website.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. To do this we teach teachers and leaders how to get the best student learning results and create results-oriented school cultures. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com to learn more about Studer Education Teacher Development Institutes (TDIs), Leader Development Institutes (LDIs), and Evidence-Based Leadership.

Unbundling

Accessibility

Upend Traditional Teaching

Upend Traditional Grading

Change a Professor’s Job

Change the Economics of Schools’ ‘Brand’

More Specialization

As an educational leader the ideas set forth in the blog should come as no surprise; for many years individuals have put forth research, monographs, “best practice” texts, and video that correspond to the individual-level or teaching-related points (i.e., accessibility, traditional teaching and grading, change a professor’s job). One video with more than 4.5 million hits on YouTube since October 2007 summarized “some of the most important characteristics of students today – how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams…” This video challenges educators to choose content differently, present content differently, and engage students differently than they have traditionally.

In short, the video challenges educators to choose and deliver content with their audience in mind. Consider the implication; our focus becomes student learning. Thus, evaluating one’s teaching is not by measured by how well the teacher teaches content, but rather how well his/her students learn.

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Gunther McGrath, R. (03.07.12). What will digital technologies do to education? Available online here.

Wesch, M., and Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Spring 2007. (10.12.2007). A Vision of Students Today. Available on YouTube.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. To do this we teach teachers and leaders how to get the best student learning results and create results-oriented school cultures. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com to learn more about Studer Education Teacher Development Institutes (TDIs), Leader Development Institutes (LDIs), and Evidence-Based Leadership.

“… teachers whose training and quick thinking helped save countless lives” (Roberts, ABC News)

“… have those children there and to be in my care and to try and do what was best for them” (Sherry Biddle, First Grade Teacher: Video)

“… [I] was just trying to calm the children down, but yet more of the same. Just like sherry said, getting them covered up, you know, we practice tornado drills and things like this and I had to tell them, this is not a drill, and we need to be safe and just laying my body on top of as many kids as I could to help out” (Cindy Lowe, First Grade Teacher: Video)

“… teachers used their bodies to shield students from airborne debris” (The Washington Post).

“What a gift those teachers are” (Stephanopoulos, ABC News)

As we remember the lives saved including the lives saved by heroic teachers and educational leaders, we send our deepest sympathies to families with loved ones lost and whose lives are forever affected.

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Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

How do we help colleagues in our organization (or department) understand that when we do certain things, we not only take less time from other processes, but we provide better service (e.g., care, learning environment, etc.)?

How do we sustain morale, employee engagement, low turnover, productivity, and service (e.g., student learning, patient care) while implementing change (e.g., reduce costs, collaborate across departments, integrate new systems) and without imploding our organization?

1. Determine where your organization/school/department is ahead of the curve.

What do you do well?

What behaviors make your high-achievers high-achieving, that is, what do they do well?

Capture your responses to these two questions, include your leadership team in the response process, so that you and your team identify what you have done well and do well – wins. Communicate these wins to your colleagues through reward and recognition. Communicate these wins in a specific way that connects with both internal and external constituents.

2. Create consistency and reliability in processes to standardize the way your organization/school/department does something in an attempt to build efficiency and effectiveness.

What processes are in place (i.e., what needs to be completed) in order to meet an outcome/goal?

Identify metrics used to measure or asses processes. How are processes aligned to performance?

Are there existing or potential accelerators to consider?

When thinking about these three questions the challenge is not understanding the standardization process, it is making sure that we do it. It is not understanding what needs to be done, it is how to manage the process to get it done. For example, we identify what needs to be done is improve student achievement; what helps us get there? This begins a shift in our thinking and communicating about process (systems) to behavior (human performance).

3. Shift communication to the solution, to how we get to the goal.

Explain the research outcomes (i.e., these teaching actions have proven results at improving student achievement) and then talk about the behaviors, the actions, the Must Haves® to achieve the desired goals.

Our goal as leaders is to work with colleagues to identify the mandatory behavior that needs to be followed in order to accelerate results, to be more efficient and more effective, and to get better desired outcomes. As leaders we help colleagues with these behaviors when we model rounding, coaching, and reward and recognition behaviors/actions, and when we talk with them about their individual professional development.

4. Build the foundation for sustaining process and behavioral change with an objective, weighted performance measurement system.

Identify priorities for each individual.

Determine the objective metric(s) for how each priority is measured.

Provide a weight to each priority.

Tie performance conversations with values. As leaders this means we tell high-performing colleagues why we want to keep them, and we develop high and solid performers. We also have conversations with low performers. This step helps leaders deal with the performance gap and helps leaders get the evaluation process right.

These four tactics represent leaders’ action and execution of their commitment to excellence. The end result is the limiting of “this is one more priority” and “there are not enough hours in the day” thinking that we read about at the beginning of this post and the movement of the organization and its employees toward a culture of excellence.

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This post represents the author’s reflection about content on an internal company video by Quint Studer, the Founder of Studer Group; post content is adapted from the video. Books available on the content include:

Studer, Quint. 2003. Hardwiring Excellence. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing.

Studer, Quint. 2008. Results that Last. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Studer, Quint. 2009. Straight A Leadership. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing.

Pilcher, Janet, and Largue, Robin. 2010. How to Lead Teachers to Become Great. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

The two highest ranked items by students (scale 1 to 5):

My learning is important at my school. (4.40)

I have opportunities to be successful at my school. (4.20)

The two lowest ranked items by students:

I am recognized for good work and behavior at my school. (3.64)

I regularly receive feedback from school staff about my academic progress. (3.49)

As teachers, if we are serious about all student learning, we must gain the best skills needed to improve the way we spend our time. At the end of the day every teacher should answer this question positively: “Have all my students learned?”

The work we do with teachers in schools and the findings of important studies show that students learn when teachers use strategies that engage students. Consider the two lowest ranked items – these two items parallel items in the Effective Teacher GPA self-reflection for teachers, specifically (see Pilcher, 2012):

I create opportunities where my students receive continuous and specific feedback that helps them improve.

I consistently recognize my students’ strengths.

How do you do on these items? Remember, the individual teacher is the most important factor in student learning. Highly effective teaching gives students a great opportunity to be engaged and gives schools a greater opportunity to record higher student achievement

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Are you a teacher? Complete the Effective Teacher GPA self-reflection online at http://WhosEngaged.com/EffectiveTeacherGPA.

Pilcher, Janet K. 2012. Who’s Engaged? Climb the Learning Ladder to See. For more information visit the book’s website here.

Check out previous What’s Right posts about this topic by searching: Student Satisfaction; Reward and Recognition; Effective Teacher GPA.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Pilcher and Largue outline evidence-based tactics that help leaders and teachers achieve improved student learning. The majority of the tactics begin with “Help Teachers…” or “Coach and Support Teachers…” How do you do as a leader whose job is to serve others?

Great teachers are the result of the great teachers who teach in them. A school leader’s priority must be to recruit, retain, coach, and support great teachers. When leaders do this, that is, when leaders serve through actions that engage, help, coach and support their teachers, then teachers have the opportunity to vastly improve, enjoy renewed purpose, feel more worthwhile, and realize the difference they make in the lives of every student they teach and every parent they contact.

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The video clip of Dr. Janet Pilcher is from Studer Education’s What’s Right in Education conference 2012. For more information about the 2013 conference October 21-22 visit here.

Pilcher, Janet, and Largue, Robin. 2010. How To Lead Teachers To Become Great. Available online here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

At Booker T. Washington High School (Pensacola, FL) the PBS team monitors progress across 5 different measurement areas of behavioral data:

Office Discipline Referrals

Out-of-School Suspensions

In-School Suspensions

Attendance

Bullying Prevention

A total of twelve items are measured across these five areas. The school monitors the measures each 9 weeks and compares data to both the previous year and previous nine weeks. The data are shared with faculty and staff, and students are rewarded and recognized using the data (e.g., class with the least number of referrals enjoys a pizza and a movie). After reviewing year 2 data associated with Washington’s PBS system, the behavior associated with the measures has improved. One example associated with office discipline referrals:

The total number of referrals decreased – more than 600 fewer referrals at the end of the 3rd Nine Weeks than previous year.

The number of individual students with a deferral decreased – individual students with at least one deferral decreased by over 50% or more than 400 students!

The average number of referrals per student decreased – Fewer individuals with deferrals (above) meant a drop, too, in the average number of referrals per student from more than 2 referrals per student to near 1/3 per student.

Similar results are found in the decrease of Out-of-School Suspensions (27% fewer) and In-School Suspensions (11.5% fewer) than the same time last year. Studer suggests (p. 95):

The more often we measure the important things, the more we’ll know about where we are making progress and where we are not. And the more we know, the more we can effect behavior.

In part 1 of this series highlighting Washington High School’s PBS System we shared the school’s expectation that every student matter and that to become better, people need to know what is expected from them. The BTWHS behavioral expectations for students are aligned with the behavioral measures highlighted in today’s post. The expectations and measures provide opportunities for teachers and leaders to offer feedback and recognition to students. The result is improved behavior.

Special thanks to Ms. Rosie Cooper for providing the content for today’s blog. Join Studer Education in celebrating her leadership of the bronze distinction PBS efforts as RtI Behavior Coach and ISS Coordinator at Washington High School. We appreciate Ms. Cooper’s willingness to share with the What’s Right readers what makes Washington’s PBS program award winning. This is the last post in a four-part series about Washington High School’s PBS program.

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Visit the B.T. Washington High School website at http://www.BTWash.org. For more information about Washington High School’s PBS program please contact Ms. Rosie Cooper, M.A.T.L., at RCooper@Escambia.K12.FL.US.

Studer, Quint. 2008. Results that Last. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Available online here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

High-performing employees… [give] the companies they work for a competitive advantage;

It’s crucial… to have systems in place to identify, recognize, reward, and retain… top performers to achieve sustainable growth;

An effective performance management system starts with a thorough goal-setting process, followed by regular feedback and reviews/appraisals… identifies employees’ developmental needs and includes robust reward and recognition practices… should encourage collaboration, teamwork, and communication.

However, the authors conclude that most companies “overlook the importance of the people element” in their performance management system and state that “managers have the greatest impact on that element,” underscoring:

A company can have a world-class [performance management] system in place — but it’s only as effective as the managers who implement it.

So, what does this mean for schools? We know from research that teachers are the most important variable affecting student achievement. Much like Pilcher and Largue, the authors of How to Lead Teachers to Become Great, several studies “suggest school leaders may be second only to teachers in their impact on student achievement” (see Gordon, 2012). Consider the following from How to Lead as actions school leaders must take to improve their schools – student achievement; school leaders must (XI-XII):

Recruit, retain, coach, and support teachers to help students achieve student learning results and ensure parents that their child is receiving an outstanding learning experience… [they] must make recruitment, selection, and development of teachers their number one priority.

School leaders see teachers coming to work each day to make a positive difference in the lives of their students. To do that job well, they know they have to continuously learn and re-learn things that make them great teachers. Too often, however, they start the school year eager to teach and learn, only to lose momentum, become fatigued, get frustrated, and go into survival mode as the year progresses. Tragically, brand new teachers sometimes decide to quit the profession. This is where school leaders must remember that they have the “greatest impact on [performance]” and focus on helping teachers keep their beginning of the school year momentum going in a positive direction.

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Gordon, G. (2012). The School Leader Pipeline: Student Success and Leadership Succession. Gallup, Inc. Available online here.

Oberoi, M., and Rajgarhia, P. (04.04.2013). What Your Performance Management System Needs Most. Gallup Business Journal™. Available online here.

Pilcher, J., and Largue, R. (2010). How to Lead Teachers to Become Great. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing. Available online here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Every week, we are in schools with leaders and teachers witnessing the important work they do. Today, we led a principal training session which was very energizing.  Prior to the session I engaged in a discussion with a very good principal in a high need school who came into the session very humbled and distressed. He told me a story of a child who had emotional problems from physical and emotional abuse that ended his day today with this child throwing punches to the principal’s stomach. As he took the punches in the stomach he calmly negotiated with the child that the anger he was feeling was not directed at him and encouraged and allowed the child to depress his anger to talk through his situation and distress at that moment.  Anger of the child turned into tears and so the story continues with tomorrow being a new day for the principal  and teachers creating a space for the child to learn and succeed.

In education, the unbelievable work our leaders and teachers do sometimes gets hidden with national directives and criticism, some of which are worthy.  With all said, I am thankful for those leaders similar to the person I engaged with today.  These leaders truly make a difference.

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Dr. Janet Pilcher is the leader of Studer Education, the education division of Studer Group and the co-author of How to Lead Teachers to Become Great.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Classroom-Based (Behavior) Evaluation

Office Disciplinary Referrals

In-School and Out-of-School Suspension

Formative assessments with feedback allow individuals being measured to know what they are doing well, where they need to improve, and how to do so. For teachers charged with implementing PBS formative assessments this may mean what they’re doing well or where they need improvement (and how) in the following areas:

(a) Classroom Environment/Setting Setup to Prevent or Address Behavior Problems;

(b) Classroom Behavior System Developed and Implemented; and

(c) Student Engagement

Teachers and leaders can use the Classroom Assistance Tool to evaluate how well they are doing or where they need improvement in each of these areas. An amended version of the tool is below. A full copy of the tool is available online from Florida’s Positive Behavior Support Project here.

Teachers may also choose a more informal (formative) assessment by simply asking a colleague or the RtI behavior coach, “Hey, I’m having a problem with this student and not really sure what I can do; can you help me with him/her?” This gives the teacher the opportunity to have a colleague or non-administrative leader (e.g., RtI Coach at Washington High School) observe his/her classroom using the Classroom Assistance Tool and also focus on the individual student in question. Such informal collaborations become a win-win-win for the individual teacher, the school, and the student.

Use of both formative and summative assessments at BTWHS allowed for leaders to make decisions based on the data. For example, the school drilled-down on its tardy data by class-to-class location during transitions to determine that one additional minute between classes might benefit the more than 1,600 strong student body. As important, assessment results help engage teachers in the process (and gain buy-in from teachers who may question the system – if/when applicable), and also engage students and parents in support of positive behavior. Here are some results from the BTWHS Positive Behavior Support model after year 1:

Office disciplinary referrals were reduced by 748 referrals from 4,070 in 2010-2011 to 3,322 in 2011-2012.

The number of students receiving Out-of-School and In-School Suspension decreased from 2010-2011 to 2011-2012.

Successful completion of a Florida PBS Walk-Through where BTWHS was critiqued, classrooms were visited, and students and teachers were interviewed on how well they knew school-wide behavior expectations. The result? BTWHS was one of 14 other high schools in the state to achieve model school status. Congratulations, PBS Team!

PBS systems establish behavioral expectations for students and support teachers’ alignment of their classroom behavior systems. Thus, students are aware of classroom- and school-wide expectations for behavior and are rewarded and recognized as a result of their (positive) behavior measured using formative and summative assessments. Washington High School’s PBS process for rewarding and recognizing students is the focus of Part 3 of this series.

Special thanks to Ms. Rosie Cooper for providing the content for today’s blog. Join Studer Education in celebrating her leadership of the bronze distinction PBS efforts as RtI Behavior Coach and ISS Coordinator at Washington High School. We appreciate Ms. Cooper’s willingness to share with the What’s Right readers what makes Washington’s PBS program award winning. This is the second of a four-part series running each Friday in April about Washington High School’s PBS program.

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Positive Behavior Support (PBS): School-Wide Expectations (Part 1 of 4). Read post here.

Visit the B.T. Washington High School website at http://www.BTWash.org. For more information about Washington High School’s PBS program please contact Ms. Rosie Cooper, M.A.T.L., at RCooper@Escambia.K12.FL.US.

“Our Partner” posts feature teachers, leaders, schools, and districts to share “what’s right” in education. Join us each Friday to celebrate these great educators, leaders, and institutions.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

It is this, “what’s missing” from these analyses – the best wishes and concern for victims, families, citizen and first responders and their perception of the legislative response, which I think about today in light of the bombings at yesterday’s Boston Marathon; a couple of colleagues, one based in Boston, shared via email earlier today:

One of the things I look for when there are tragedies, like what happened in Boston, or for that matter any “dark” situation or moment, is the light. Mister Roger’s, the children’s TV host used to say that whenever he saw anything on TV that was scary when he was a child his mom used to comfort him by coaching him to “look for the helpers”.  On Facebook and on a few blogs I picked up on this theme. When watching the endless replay of the events on the news I too noticed the “helpers”… Look at the videos, think about it. How many did you see running towards the carnage? I saw first responders, Physicians, Nurses, Soldiers, random people.  That’s what Love does.

… what occurred yesterday was beyond belief… it’s the helpers that will be remembered… What matters is what we chose to do moving forward and how we can let the light, positive energy and healing take over the negativity of the situation. I am off to speak to a group of emerging nursing leaders today, many of whom work in the hospitals that are caring for the victims. It is a somber day, yet one of hope as we in healthcare know we are healers of the heart and soul, as well as the body.

As teachers and leaders in education, healthcare (or any field) such tragedies remind us that it is how we move to educate better, or act better, or engage better, or demonstrate our interest, care, or concern better – all in an effort to make a positive difference – that often becomes meaningful. Today with a heavy heart I celebrate the heroes in Boston. They remind us that even in the darkest of times we must seize the opportunity to have purpose, do worthwhile actions, and make a difference. Fortunately, there are opportunities for educators to have purpose, do worthwhile work, and make a difference every day in the lives of their students and parents. I am grateful to engage in professional work with teachers and witness the difference they make in students’ lives; they, too, are heroes… daily.

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Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

To become better, people need to know where they are going and what is expected of them. This means for students to learn they need to know what they should be focusing on and what they should do in order to reach a desired goal. Similarly, this means for students to do the right thing or behave they need to know the expectations for appropriate behavior. What are some ways award-winning Booker T. Washington High School communicates behavior expectations?

Posted around the school are the BTWHS School-Wide Expectations (above) reminding each student that he/she matters.

At new freshman orientation before school begins, new students are introduced to the school’s PBS program. In addition, at the beginning of each academic year all English teachers spend one week with their classes reviewing the Behavior Expectation Matrix which helps students think about what it means to “be safe; take responsibility; have pride and academic success; and show respect” in areas of the school (e.g., atrium, hallways, cafeteria). Below is the 2 x 5 matrix for behavior expectations for the classroom, and bus and car lots; the full 8 x 5 Behavior Expectation Matrix is available by contacting Ms. Cooper.

Parents are encouraged to help support positive behavior by modeling and encouraging appropriate behavior, rewarding and recognizing their child, and maintaining active communication with teachers at BTWHS. See the school’s PBS parent brochure here.

Setting behavioral expectations helps students know what is expected of them as they engage with their classmates, teachers, and administrators; much like learning targets set expectations for what is expected in academic achievement, expectations for behavior allow students to act with a goal in mind. Communicating such expectations to students, much like teachers’ communication of learning targets in their classrooms, provides opportunities for teachers and school leaders to offer feedback (positive or negative) and recognition through formative and summative assessments. This is the focus of part 2 of our series posted next Friday.

Special thanks to Ms. Rosie Cooper for providing the content for today’s blog. Join Studer Education in celebrating her leadership of the bronze distinction PBS efforts as RtI Behavior Coach and ISS Coordinator at Washington High School. We appreciate Ms. Cooper’s willingness to share with the What’s Right readers what makes Washington’s PBS program award winning. This is the first of a four-part series running each Friday in April about Washington High School’s PBS program.

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Visit the B.T. Washington High School website at http://www.BTWash.org. For more information about Washington High School’s PBS program please contact Ms. Rosie Cooper, M.A.T.L., at RCooper@Escambia.K12.FL.US.

“Our Partner” posts feature teachers, leaders, schools, and districts to share “what’s right” in education. Join us each Friday to celebrate these great educators, leaders, and institutions.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

… making a full-time commitment to the journey of defining yourself as a leader and how this will shape the manner in which you will serve others. Your personal brand should represent the value you are able to consistently deliver to those whom you are serving.

This definition is grounded in the traits of the Level 5 Leader (Collins, audio clip):

who operated first and foremost with a genuine humility; but it was humility as defined as a burning, passionate, obsessive ambition for the cause, for the company, for the work—not themselves.

In a meeting this week with leaders from my division as well as leaders from the company, including the President and CEO and CFO, I heard each individual around the table describe why they do what they do and what it means to do purposeful, worthwhile work, and make a difference in healthcare and education.

In education, teachers want to make a difference in the lives of their students. Indeed, teachers enter their classrooms with the goals of helping their students find their sense of purpose and do worthwhile work. Using evidence from our company’s work, we can safely surmise that teachers can reconnect to students’ eagerness to learn when they create a classroom culture built around the core principles of “purpose, worthwhile work, and making a difference” (Studer, 2003).

Students long for teachers to spark a fire in them. When that occurs, teachers make a difference in their lives. Teachers (and leaders) make a full-time commitment to those you serve by developing your principles of purpose, worthwhile work, and making a difference.

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Collins, James. What is Level 5? Available online here: audio clip.

Llopis, Glenn. 4.08.2013. Personal Branding Is A Leadership Requirement, Not a Self-Promotion Campaign. Forbes. Available online here.

Pilcher, Janet, and Largue, Robin. 2012. How to Lead Teachers to Become Great. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing. To read the Introduction and Chapter 1 of the book click here.

Studer, Quint. 2003. Hardwiring Excellence: Purpose, Worthwhile Work, Making a Difference. Gulf Breeze, FL: Fire Starter Publishing.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Becoming better and better teachers means we align instruction to Common Core State Standards which includes writing measureable learning targets and aligning them with learning tasks and feedback strategies. This blog’s focus is on one of these: providing formative assessment and consistent feedback using the work of Sadler (1989; 1998) and Black and Wiliam (1998).

Sadler (1989; 1998) suggests that students must be able to understand quality work and make good decisions about their work. Therefore, they must be able to compare their work to some sort of standard. Doing so, they can identify their learning gaps and know where they need to improve. Consequently, Sadler proposes that students become more motivated about learning and confident in their abilities.

Findings from Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment (Black and Wiliam, 1998) suggest that teachers who use formative assessments and provide consistent feedback to students increase student achievement. This meta-analysis of 250 articles found that students of teachers who used formative assessment practices significantly improved their performance on standardized tests. The highest gains occurred for lower performing students.

The practice for teachers, therefore, is to use the concept of a feedback loop which involves teachers and their students simultaneously collecting and analyzing student learning information to determine where students are and where they need to go (Sadler). Students’ progression from one learning target to another works best when students receive descriptive feedback to help them improve. Students rely on feedback and without it, their chance for remaining engaged learners spirals downward.

How well do you think you as a teacher generally perform the following actions (adapted from the Who’s Engaged? book):

I judge my ability to teach by how well my students learn rather than how well I teach content.
I do not blame students or their parents for my students failing to learn.
My students clearly see how one day of learning builds on the next day of learning.
I create opportunities where my students receive continuous and specific feedback that helps them improve.
I consistently recognize my students’ strengths.

When we ask teachers to self-assess on the full range of these items (see Who’s Engaged, p. 11) they tend to assign themselves and other teachers grades that produce a “C” average. Ironically, research over the years tells us that when teachers apply these actions in their classrooms, students achieve higher scores on standardized tests.

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Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education. 5(1), 7-71.

Sadler, D. R. (1998). Formative assessment: revisiting the territory. Assessment in Education. 5(1), 77-84.

Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science. 18, 119-144.

Pilcher, Janet K. (2012). Who’s Engaged? Climb the Learning Ladder to See. More information online here.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite) and our website at http://iTeacherSuite.com for free resources.

At the beginning of professional development sessions or a class we ask teachers to take the Effective Teacher GPA self-assessment to help us set the stage for learning together. In our experience, teachers tend to assign themselves and other teachers grades that produce a “C” average. Ironically, research over the years tells us that when teachers apply these actions in their classrooms, students achieve higher scores on standardized tests.

In Part 1 of the Exercise we encouraged teachers to participate and to calculate their overall GPA using all 12 statements; we would do the same using aggregate poll responses of all participants. These are the results (N < 100):

As teachers we are not altogether responsible for failing to score an “A” on the self-assessment. However, by taking the Effective Teacher GPA we are able to think reflectively about how we need to modify our practices to focus more on what students learn rather than on the content we teach and the activities we do with students in class. The good news is that when teachers commit to applying the actions from the Effective Teacher GPA Exercise in their classrooms, teachers place students in winning situations where they are eager to learn, take on challenges, and own their learning.

As teachers we must enter our classrooms each day with the purpose in mind that comes from Coach John Wooden, one of the best basketball coaches and teachers of all time. To be effective teachers he tells us “we have not taught students, until they have learned” (Nater and Gallimore, 2006). Thus, we should not judge our effectiveness by how much we teach, what we teach, and how we teach. Rather, we must judge our work as teachers by viewing how well students learned, especially students who struggle the most.

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Visit http://whosengaged.com/effectiveteachergpa  to complete the Effective Teacher GPA and have your GPA results sent to you.

Black, P., and Wiliam, D. 1998. Inside the black box: raising standards through classroom assessment, Phi Delta Kappa, 80(2), pp. 139 – 144.

Nater, S., and Gallimore, R. 2006. You Haven’t Taught Until Students Have Learned: John Wooden’s Teaching Principles and Practices. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology.

The Effective Teacher GPA is an exercise to help teachers reflect on their teaching practices. The content is from Who’s Engaged? Climb the Learning Ladder to See by Janet K. Pilcher (2012). For more information about this book or professional development opportunities for teachers associated with the book’s content see http://WhosEngaged.com or contact us at Questions@iTeacherSuite.com.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite).

Yesterday’s Harvard Management Tip of the Day (here) challenges us to “strike the right tone in [our] writing” and reminds us that “getting tone right takes work – but it’s critical…” The Tip tells me that I can find the right tone by writing a message “as if [I was] speaking to the recipient in person.” Dr. Janet Pilcher, Senior Leader of Studer Education, shared the Tip with us (her colleagues) because she believes the Tip is “one of the most important in today’s work world” and relates it to connecting with others via email:

When I read emails, I can read messages that are written with positive language yet as the receiver I sense the person on the other side is corresponding without much thought to who I am or without having a true interest in connecting with me. 

Email correspondence is often a critical part and sometimes the only part of our communication with others. Studer Education colleagues responded in the following ways to the Tip and Janet’s initial reflection about it:

Let’s learn what not to do and continue to be good stewards to others as our primary mission. It is very difficult to do the work we do without having a true sense of care for our students and school district partners.

As a person that has to constantly reread emails for content and voice. It is very easy to send messages that are unintended especially when I respond quickly. This is something I teach but do not always follow. Immediate responses are usually not required. Stop. Think. Reread—then respond.

I also like to stop and take an extra minute or two to end my emails to students by adding a closing that is welcoming and heartwarming.  This is something I learned from Dr. Mary Rogers [UWF Professor Emeritus] who always had such wonderful closings that I would find myself looking there before ever reading her email.  I think this helps frame emails and makes the reader “feel the love.”

And [Mary’s] beginnings would say – “Warm Greetings, Janet.” …  I learned from her to address the person in a sincere way.

…Reading all these emails about setting the right tone has reminded me of the saying which we used to have posted in the Print Shop when I worked for the ECSD: “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”

Don’t underestimate the difference we can make when we CHOOSE how engage with others.

All of these comments represent what it means to “communicate to connect” with others—that as a leader or teacher (or friend or spouse/partner) we choose rightly how to communicate our interest in others and in their work and our sincere commitment to them and to our work/partnership.

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Michael Thorpe has been the principal at Milton High School since 2007. Read about Principal Thorpe’s use of AudioMemos to connect with his colleagues in a previous blog here.

Harvard Business Review. (April 02, 2013). “Strike the Right tone in Your Writing,” The Management Tip retrieved 04.03.2013 online here and adapted from the HBR Guide to Better Business Writing.

The Studer Education quotes included in this blog are from Dr. Sarah Miller, Mr. Paul Brown, Dr. Janet Pilcher, and Dr. Robin Largue. Thank you for including me on correspondence even though you know the possibility that it may make “the blog.” These exchanges are meaningful to me and an excellent example of what we teach others.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Participate in this today’s Exercise:

Learning makes more sense to students when they experience learning tasks that specifically connect to learning targets communicated by teachers. Likewise, feedback strategies coexist alongside student assignments and function as part of the instructional process. We naturally give students feedback as they complete learning tasks. Feedback strategies allow us to create formal ways to give students timely feedback. Also, students gain feedback from themselves and other students. What does it mean for planning lessons? Information we gather from the feedback strategies determines if we need to modify our instruction for the next day’s lesson or continue on.

We informally assess student progress each day. We look at body language and expressions, listen to the types of questions students ask, and analyze their frustration levels. These informal formative assessment/feedback strategies are important. However, they do not directly involve students in reflecting about their own performance, making learning connections, and taking ownership of their learning. Below are 6 ways for teachers to do just that.

• Provide feedback to recognize good performance.
• Very specifically describe how students can improve their performance.
• Focus on how well rather than how rapidly students accomplished the learning target.
• Focus on quality rather than quantity of student work accomplished.
• Focus on providing feedback about the learning task, not personalizing it to the student.
• Provide opportunities for students to express that they understand the feedback and what they need to do to improve.

As teachers we must constantly create ways to collect and analyze information to share with students. Feedback can be applied by the teacher, by student peers, or through assessment. We must choose feedback strategies that specifically create ways for students to receive descriptive feedback about their performance.

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The Effective Teacher GPA is an exercise to help teachers reflect on their teaching practices. The content is from Who’s Engaged? Climb the Learning Ladder to See by Janet K. Pilcher (2012). For more information about this book or professional development opportunities for teachers associated with the book’s content see http://WhosEngaged.com or contact us at Questions@iTeacherSuite.com.

iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite).

Selecting the right teachers is one of the most important decisions school leaders make. Not only will these teachers contribute to the overall culture of the school, but they will make or break how well the school’s students will learn. Listen to Collins on the following audio clip (5:22) to hear him discuss Five Key Things to Consider When Looking for the Right People:

Collins Audio Clip

1) Shares Core Values of Organization

2) No Need to Manage

3) Has the Potential to be the Best in Field / Position

4) Knows Difference between a Job and Responsibility

5) If another Hiring Decision and Knowing What You Know, would You Hire Again?

Research tells us that the most influential variable in student learning is the teacher. Thus, to improve student learning, school leaders need to “get the right people on the bus” and then do whatever they can to keep them in their classrooms.

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Collins, James. Good to Great. Read related article here. Check out the book on Amazon here.

Collins, James. The Five Key Things to Consider When Looking for the Right People audio clip available here.

Aspiring Leaders Seminar by Drs. Janet Pilcher and Robin Largue. For more information about opportunities for leader and teacher professional development grounded in Evidence-Based Leadership^SM please contact us at Questions@iTeacherSuite.com.

Pilcher, Janet, and Largue, Robin. (2012). How to Lead Teachers to Become Great. Download the book’s Introduction, Chapter 1, and Learning Guide from the “leader learning resources” area here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Learn more about our mission and our Evidence-Based Leadership^SM K12 partnerships online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

What does this mean at the school-level? Leaders encourage and provide opportunities for:

• Teachers to create and communicate a well-written learning target that scaffolds complex learning objectives, and aligns with a common core standard, learning tasks, and assessments.
• Teachers to create measures that are meaningful to them and that guide student learning.
• Teachers to create performance-based classrooms; that is, leaders help teachers apply this concept in the classroom by encouraging them to consistently reinforce positive steps in student learning rather than punishing students for mistakes made during learning.

Participate in today’s Exercise:

If there are no measurements aligned to a learning target, then teachers fail to know if students hit their learning target. Measures define performance benchmarks of achievement. The learning target is much more meaningful when a measure is aligned to it. Learning targets guide the type of instruction needed to hit a learning target and the measure determines how well the student is doing. What does this mean at the classroom-level?

• Teachers must practice how to clearly express learning targets and measures, communicate to students what it means for them to achieve at the highest measure, and instruct, demonstrate, and help students practice hitting the learning targets at the stated measurable level.
• Learning targets must include measurable capability actions students are expected to perform.
• Teachers can use measurements to hold students accountable; these measures also let students know how close they are to hitting their learning targets. The better a teacher aligns the measure to a desired target the faster students achieve results.

Participate with us in the Effective Teacher GPA Exercise for the next two weeks (M, T, R blog posts). At the conclusion you can calculate your overall GPA; we will do the same using all anonymous poll responses.

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iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve. Check out our Facebook page to connect with teachers and to share teaching strategies (https://www.facebook.com/iTeacherSuite).

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

The video below shares more about how Rigby engages students in her classroom with mini white boards. She describes how individual white boards are used to engage students:

Encourages all students to answer/participate

Lessens students being intimidated

Increases number of teacher questions

Allows instant feedback

http://www.pnj.com/videonetwork/2196410902001/Susan-Rigby-is-Escambia-Teacher-of-Year

Nearly 60 teachers across Escambia County are honored each year as Teacher of the Year in their respective school. Supported by decades of research, more than any factor, a teacher is the greatest influencer of student achievement. We are lucky to have many great teachers! Like a few of my colleagues, I am fortunate to have been a teacher of high school students and a teacher of teachers and leaders. Today, each of us is grateful to engage in professional work with teachers and witness the difference they are making in students’ lives.

Teachers deserve opportunities to have purpose, do worthwhile work, and feel they are making a difference. What value do teachers have? Many students consider teachers their heroes. To reinforce the teacher as hero http://TeacherShoutOut.com invites you to share a story about your favorite teacher.

My colleagues and I also shared our favorite teacher stories on our Facebook page as a comment under the “Thanks” teacher shout out post. We invite you to add your own story and read the stories of others who contribute. We anticipate there will be many stories that parallel that of Ms. Rigby… a celebration of Ms. Rigby as a top teacher and a hero to her students. Thank you for your commitment to students.

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Kourkounis, Erin. (02.27.2013). Escambia Teachers have a “Passion for the Profession.” Pensacola News Journal. Available online here.

Kourkounis, Erin. (02.28.2013). Pine Forest’s Rigby named Escambia Teacher of the Year. Pensacola News Journal. Available online here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. To do this we teach teachers and leaders how to get the best student learning results and create results-oriented school cultures. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com to learn more about Studer Education’s parent satisfaction, employee engagement, and service excellence surveys. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

We work with school district and school leaders who have a true commitment to excellence and want their districts and schools to serve as models for becoming some of the best school districts in the world. The cornerstone of this process is leaders and employees executing measureable and aligned evaluation systems focused on:

Students improving their achievement levels;

Employees believing their leaders provide a good work environment;

Employees providing service excellence, and

Parents feeling satisfied with their child’s education.

In December, the Charleston County School District (SC) completed an administration of the Employee Engagement Survey, a 14-item questionnaire with a Likert response scale and three open-ended questions. One open-ended question asks, “Is there anyone in the school district that you would like to recognize for good work?” School leaders created a graphic using Wordle to recognize these colleagues:

In a school setting, high performers share the school values, know how to problem solve, and serve as good mentors and role models for others. Conversations with high performers represent one of the core elements for providing a support-focused environment where these teachers and staff can continuously learn, apply, and achieve. Do your part in thanking a high performer for his/her work, outline why he/she is important to the school, and ask what kind of support she/he needs.

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Special thanks to Erica Roberts, Performance Management Officer, in the Charleston County School District for sharing the District’s Employee Engagement Wordle.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. To do this we teach teachers and leaders how to get the best student learning results and create results-oriented school cultures. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com to learn more about Studer Education’s parent satisfaction, employee engagement, and service excellence surveys. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Part 1 grounded the importance of the Effective Teacher GPA reflection using findings from Black and Wiliam (1998) and Marzano (2003). Part 2 highlighted Hattie’s Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement presents the same goal by presenting what “what works best.”

When teachers commit to applying the actions from the Effective Teacher GPA Exercise in their classrooms, they are more likely to regain their passion for teaching and move toward excellence. Participate in this week’s Exercise:

Participate in Part 1’s Exercise and Part 2′s Exercise. We invite you to continue to participate over the next couple weeks. At the end of the Exercise, you can calculate your overall GPA and we will do the same using all poll responses.

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iTeacherSuite introduces teachers to practical and research-based tools, resources, and online learning communities for the purpose of helping teachers become highly effective and engaging students to learn and achieve.

Positive Behavior Support (PBS) gives people a new way to think about behavior.  PBS is based on understanding why problem behaviors occur- the behavior’s function… PBS provides a positive and effective alternative to the traditional methods of discipline.  PBS methods are research-based and proven to significantly reduce the occurrence of problem behaviors in the school, resulting in a more positive school climate and increased academic performance.

Oakcrest’s PBS program earned gold distinction from the Florida Positive Behavior Support Project. According to Ms. Bonifay there are three major reasons why PBS works at Oakcrest:

We have an INCREDIBLE faculty and staff!

The school’s team approach to PBS begins with the principal. [Principal Denny] Wilson has given the Leadership Team the authority to adjust the plan and make the necessary changes for the program to be successful.

Our PBS plan reflects our school motto: Every Student, Every Day, Whatever it Takes!

Much effort goes into the team approach. Oakcrest began by forming a PBS Leadership Team. The Team received PBS training and then developed the school PBS plan and trained faculty and staff. Faculty and staff from all grade levels and departments form the PBS Committee at Oakcrest. Parent and student perceptions and behavior data are also included in discussion. Why?

[Adding faculty and staff from all grade levels and departments] afforded us the opportunity to have a representative at all grade level meetings to facilitate implementation and relay concerns to the [PBS] committee.

All stakeholders (parents, teachers, staff, and students) are surveyed and the [PBS Committee] makes adjustments as needed.

[The Committee] disaggregates behavior data frequently (monthly, sometimes bi-monthly) to review problem behaviors; behavior by grade level; infraction location and time of day; interventions utilized; etc.

[Committee] makes positive adjustments to PBS Plan based on the behavior data and surveys responses.

Anchored by strong leadership a Team approach, Oakcrest’s PBS program also includes school-wide positive strategies, community involvement, and recognition of contributions by faculty and staff.

Special thanks to Ms. Linda Bonifay for providing the content for today’s blog. Join Studer Education in celebrating her leadership as Curriculum Coordinator and leader of the gold distinction PBS efforts at Oakcrest Elementary. Ms. Bonifay is one of the incredible leaders at Oakcrest Elementary and we appreciate her willingness to share with the What’s Right readers what makes Oakcrest’s PBS program award winning.

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Visit the Oakcrest Elementary School website.

Last week’s blog “Our Partner” post featured Oakcrest’s principal, Mr. Denny Wilson, where he talked about “living” the Oakcrest motto Every Student, Every Day, Whatever it Takes! Check out the post here.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Celebrate Students! The day began with the District’s Classical Guitar group of 50 high school students performing for the audience. The district has 3 Classical Guitar programs – Classen School of Advanced Studies, Capitol Hill HS, and U S Grant High School.

Other student performances included traditional Hispanic dancers in costume performing to classical Spanish music, drama students performing a scene from West Side Story, and the Brothers of Stomp from Star Spencer High School. Meet the Brothers of Stomp here.

A video from the Foundation for OKCPS highlighted that each student of OKCPS is the “community’s child” and the community must take responsibility for creating opportunities for education for all students.

Celebrate Supporting Our Students! The Oklahoma City Advertising City Club honored the Foundation for Oklahoma City Public Schools with three awards during its annual ADDY competition to reward creative excellence in advertising. The Foundation won a gold ADDY in the public service video campaign category and a bronze ADDY in the public service video category for its ‘Rise Up’ (OKCPS Foundation Website) Read More here…

Remove Negativity from the Workplace! Hunt Elementary School (Jackson, MI) Principal Raczkowski-Shannon shared her experience implementing evidence-based leadership (EBL) practices in her school delivering a message of “what you permit, you promote.”

Principal Denny Wilson of Oakcrest Elementary School (Pensacola, FL) shared a message which echoed that of the Foundation video, that is, of recognizing purpose, worthwhile work, and making a difference by having the right people in the right places. Speaker and author Liz Jacwiec challenged OKCPS employees to remove negativity from the workplace to move their organization to excellence. Remember that ultimately our goal as educators is to create a great place to work as this creates excellence in outcomes for students, colleagues, and our communities.

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Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the fifth straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Consider these four “soft skills” and two operational policies to positively influence support service excellence using more than 28,500 responses from principals and assistant principals across six school districts.

1. Answer the Telephone (Focus: Accessibility)
2. Respond to Calls or Emails with an Appropriate Greeting and Information (Focus: Accuracy)
3. Engage in the 10’ – 5’ Rule (Focus: Attitude)
4. Return Phone Calls and Emails within 24 Hours always and then Follow-up when Additional Time is Needed (Focus: Timeliness)

Two additional policy items help organizations focus on operations:

1. Create Detailed Voice Messages for Answering Machine
2. Transfer Calls Only to a (Real) Person

The key? Focus on only one of these skills or policies to achieve results and create objective measures for the goal/outcome. Consider an article from Public Administration Review (Resh and Pitts, Jan/Feb 2013):

Theories of goal conflict suggest… organizations face a zero-sum trade-off among goals. [This portion of goal conflict theory was used/tested] to explain the implementation and interaction of multiple policy goals in the context of Georgia public high schools… The findings demonstrate the highly contingent nature of… trade-off. [That is,] more robust gains can be made toward a higher-order objective by focusing on one particular lower-order goal rather than an all-inclusive approach to goal attainment.

There is a greater likelihood of (positively) influencing behavior and change when an organization focuses on one goal or objective. Focus on one goal, institutionalize (hardwire) behavior to achieve it — make it your culture, and measure it. And, remember that service excellence begins with one’s leadership and commitment to purpose, worthwhile work, and making a difference (Studer, 2008).

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Resh, William G., and Pitts, David W. (January/February 2013). No Solutions, Only Trade-Offs? Evidence about Goal Conflict in Street-Level Bureaucracies” Public Administration Review, 73(1): 132-142. PDF available online here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2012.02623.x/pdf.

Studer, Q. 2008. Results that Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That will Take Your Company to the Top. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Our mission at Studer Education is to provide students with a great place to learn, teachers with a great place to teach, and parents with confidence that their children are getting a great education. To do this we work with school boards, leaders, and teachers to apply Evidence-Based continuous improvement processes and the principles from How to Lead Teachers to Become Great in their districts to get the best student learning results and create results-oriented school cultures. Visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.